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This post starts off with a short video I took several weeks ago at the Coyote Bar and Grill in Carlsbad, which is where my wife and like to go dancing. On this night, one of my favorite singers (Valerie Pierce) was singing one of my favorite tunes (“This is How We Do It”) with one of my favorite local bands (SmokeStaxx). Before I get into my usual pontification, I’d suggest that you watch the video now.Unfortunately, I was not quick enough to capture the whole song, but I got the best part.

I had talked briefly with Valerie after she had performed this rap at an earlier date.I asked whether she would be OK with me recording her the next time they did this tune and she said “yes”. I also asked her what her state of mind was while she was performing that night.Her answer was ” I don’t know where I went”. (Valerie was recently named “#1 Ranking New Jazz Artist in the Hollywood Talent Quest”. See more at ValeriePierce.com)

The idea of being somewhere else (or not being one’s self) is common among musicians when trying to describe their state of mind while improvising.The same language is common among those witnessing such performances (e.g. “like he’s gone, man”or “He’s possessed”).(see Improvization in Jazz and Zen).I would suggest that such performances are good examples of what Dr.Mihaly Csikszentimaihalyi calls the “flow experience” where the experiencer“forgets the conceptual self” and loses a sense of time.(See To Know Flow or No Flow?).The idea of being “far out” was also the topic of an earlier blog “The thin line between”and “aliens”

While it is common to refer to such performancer as not being here, in other posts (for instance“The Artist Is Present”, I also suggest that the performer is totally here in the present in the moment.The language we use to describe and try to understand these kinds of experiences could, at first blush, be seen as contradictory.Is the performer “gone” or is she “totally here in the present moment?Is the performer “far out” or “present”. The problem lies in trying to describe human experiences that lie outside the commonplace or “normal”These kinds of experiences are simply not easy to describe in words because they involve a dropping away of the usual thought processes (predominately “left brain” processes) that we use for making distinctions and understanding what is happening.As I have shown before, these are the very kinds of experiences that spawn creativity (See “Sudden Insight and Creativity“)

As I look at Valerie in this video, I see both someone who is “gone” and “fully present”.She is gone in the sense that she is not exactly her usual self, but she is present in that she is responding immediately and quickly to what is going on around her; making split-second decisions that can only occur when one is fully focused in the present moment.

I was talking with my brother recently about all of this and he said that when he is improvising (he is a jazz saxaphonist) the audience can tell when he is in the state of being Gone/Present and they let him know by their response.When someone is in this state (whether a performer or not) they have a “Presence”. (see Performer-Audience Communication” ).How is this “presence” communicated?I would suggest that it is conveyed as much visually as through sound.I have played drums while my brother is improvising and I can always tell when he is “into it”; it is conveyed by facial expressions and various other forms of body language (try watching the video of Valerie again, with your volume turned down).

Monk and Diz

There is reason to believe that this is true of performers in the relatively subdued and staid classical music. I just read about some surprising research that seems consistent with this idea.Chia-Jung Tsay is both a classical pianist and a psychologist who conducted a study where she showed both amateur and professional musicians clips from classical-music competitions. She asked her volunteers to guess the winners.But, some saw videos with recording, some listed only to audio and others watched silent videos.What she found is that it was only in the silent videos, the videos without any sound, that participants were best able to identify the actual winners.

My interpretation of Tsay’s results is that the “presence” of the winners was largely conveyed visually.Interestingly, Ellen Langer’s studies on creativity and mindfulness also suggest that “presence” may be conveyed from artist to viewer even when the artist is not physically present.In a series of experiments where volunteers were either encouraged to create art pieces mindfully or allowed to create with no intervention, she found that artist who created more mindfully were judged to be more “authentic or charismatic based on viewers perceptions of their work.Now “presence” is one of those words that are difficult to define but I think that “authenticity’ and “charisma” are elements of what we generally mean when using the term.

What Langer calls the “authenticity” and “charisma”, (which can be seen as part of “presence”) of painters can be conveyed to viewers through what they see on the canvas.Generally, I would say, we are drawn to art of all types when it conveys the presence of the artist, even if the artist is not physically present.

In the most general sense “presence” means that others are impressed by a person”s appearance and manner.But, as I discussed above, the term often implies the existence of something or someone not physically present.Different people will have different interpretations of the “something” or “someone” but I think the quote from Wikihow below best sums up my position:

“In some spiritual circles, presence and spirit are one in the same. Meditation, contemplation, dance, chant, all seek to connect with something deeper. Presence is the result of getting in contact with your deeper self.”

Even the nature of “your deeper self” can be debated but I would suggest that this is what is often referred to in the Zen literature as “realizing one’s Buddha nature”.That is, it is in our nature to be “present/awake/alive” but for most people, this must be realized through practice. The term “Buddha nature” is one of those that can be difficult to grasp but I think that author William Westney may provide some insight into it’s meaning.

Westney, author of “The Perfect Wrong Note: Learning to Trust Your Musical Self” suggests that if you watch 3 year olds engaging with music you get a sense of the inherent joy that can be evoked from playing and listening to music. Artists with “presence”, I would suggest, allow the enthusiasm and involvement of the child to shine through their performances. To use Westney’s worlds: ..”there is total involvement, every fiber, sinew and nerve-ending alter to the musical impulse…” (pg. 17). This is what I see when watching the video of Valerie.

Westney suggests that this inherent joy, in most cases, is sufficated by lessons and other adult demands until most of us forget or deny it and we become convinced that we do not have the talent to either perform or fully listen music (see “Ellen Langer on “The Talent Myth).

Westney goes on to say:

“The energized, fluid creativity of play, for example is a childhood treasure that is often lost later. People happily forget themselves when they are absorbed in play, and at the same time they are acutely aware” (p. 22). In other words they are simultaneously “there” and “here”. Dale Wright’s deconstruction of the Buddhist Six Perfections, designed to provide students with the “goals” of practice suggests that a sense of joy is a key element of spiritual practice as well. It makes sense to me that this joy would develop as one breaks through the conditioning that has stiffled the joyousness of childhood. It seems to me that what Westney is describing as the three year old’s natural inclination to play and musicality is very similar to “Buddha nature” in that both are inherent and both usually need to be re-discovered or realized in later life.

From all accounts it appears that the historic Buddha, after years of spiritual practice, had a presence that others could acknowledge and were drawn to.At the same time I would guess that had Buddha been around during the early days of jazz, he would certainly have been seen as “real gone”.The Heart Sutra, seen as one of the most important of Buddha’s teachings ends withthe phrases “gate gate paragate parasamgate bodhi svaha” which is translated as “ gone, gone, gone beyond, gone completely beyond“.Gone, as gone beyond ordinary egjo-based consciousness and suffering.From what I can tell, Buddha conveyed his “goneness” to those he met but was also very much present; present enough to effectively convey his teaching, organize an order of monks to succeed him and become engaged in civil society.According to the Venerable K. Sri Dhammananda Maha Thera, “The Buddha had gone beyond all worldly affairs, but still gave advice on good government” (http://www.saigon.com/~anson/ebud/whatbudbeliev/229.htm)

So, the historic Buddha was gone but not gone.Neither “here” or “there”.Interestingly Buddha uses terms similar to this in the following quote attributed to him:

When for you there is only the seen in the seen, only the heard in the heard, only the sensed in the sensed, only the cognized in the cognized, then you will not be reckoned by it. When you are not reckoned by it, you will not be in it. When you are not in it, you will be neither “here” nor “there” nor between the two.

This, just this, is the end of suffering.

Buddha Gautama (563-483 BC)

When I am dancing to a great band like Smokestaxx or watching/listening to a great performer like Valerie Pierce, I am often temporarily “neither here nor there” and I get at least a taste of what it might be like to realize my “Buddha Nature”. Does Booty Shaking = Buddha Nature ? I’m not sure but I intend to keep up my booty shaking practice and I’ll let you know when I find out.

Since the publication of “Evolution of The Adagio – a therapeutic motion machine” there has been quite a bit of discussion about the importance of the Golden Ratio in the creation of art and music ( see “Truth , and Faith and B. S. in Art and Zen”).The advocates of this approach contend that art based on the proportions called the Golden ratio is somehow more aesthetically perfect or pleasing than others.One of my readers, Charlie from Massachusetts, suggested that we do a little experiment on Art and Zen Today to test that idea. I thought that sounded like fun and so asked Charlie to work on that for this Post.After the experimental quiz, found below, I have added a few comments about how all of this could be seen as related to Zen practice. The “right answers” to the quiz are contained in my comments.

Thanks Charlie for your contribution.

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Since the series of post on the Golden Ratio I have consciously looked at objects to see whether or not I found those based on the Ratio to be more asthetically pleasing. For instance, I went through a couple stores with my wife and I started seeing things in the stores through a prism of the golden rectangle. For example there was a sox display in the shape of the golden rectangle, a bench in the entryway to a store. and a couple other things. I kept saying to myself—is that shaped correctly? I think there is something to it. Maybe the Renaissance was a more enlightened time—they were more in tune with a sense of beauty. Today few people care about whether things are shaped correctly to achieve a balance.” I thought it might be interesting for your readers to see whether or not objects based on Golden Ratio were more pleasing to them.

In his article James took a wider view and discussed many applications of the golden mean. Here, I’m only focusing on the appearance of the front view of standing furniture. And now, starting from the very beginning, what is a golden rectangle? It’s a rectangle standing up like a sign whose width is 1.618 times bigger than the side. See below.

Ratio of Height to Width is .61 (Golden Mean)

The next image shows a man looking at a golden rectangle. According to the artists from the past, we should appreciate that the golden rectangle is a more pleasing to the eye than other rectangles.

Looking only at the front of a piece of furniture, let’s say, a bench (see below); someone may be able to convince you that a bench built to the dimensions of the golden ratio looks more pleasing than a wider one or a narrower version of the same bench. To illustrate that, we see below a golden rectangle placed in back of a bench. You can see that the bench matches the golden rectangle—same width, same height off the floor. The front view of the bench is built to the dimensions of the golden rectangle.

The Bench is same proportion as Golden Ratio

Now, test your own preferences of what you think is more pleasing. Below are three pairs of furniture. Without much thought, choose the one you find most pleasing. Then check below to see if you picked those that were built to the dimensions of the golden ratio. Make your choices before checking the answers below.

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When I took Charlie’s test, I choose the furniture that conformed to the Golden Ratio in two of the three sets.I could imagine making other choices if the objects had varied in color, decoration or if I had to place the furniture in a spot with unique space requirements.In other words, I am guessing that the “ideal” specified by the mathematics of the Golden Ratio, may have some validity but the “pull” towards this notion of what is aesthetically pleasing is not a strong one.A study by psychologists McManus, Cook and Hunt seems to back up this view ( See “Beyond the Golden Section and Normative Aesthetics: Why Do IndividualsDiffer so Much in Their Aesthetic Preferences for Rectangles?”)

In all three cases, the pieces on the right were proportioned in accord with the Golden Ratio. I’d be very interested in how you did and what your process was like. Any ideas on this topic would be welcomed. Take the time to write a comment.

Speaking of ideals, I just happened to have just finished reading Dale Wright’s The Six Perfections: Buddhism and the Cultivation of Character.Wright sees the six perfections ( generosity, morality, tolerance, energy , mediation and wisdom) as traits which, throughout the evolution of Buddhist thought, have been seen as the most important and useful in defining or describing the “enlightened person”.These ideals are understood to be those towards which practitioners should strive.Although Wright provides the reader with a sense of how and why these “perfections” or ideals evolved over time, he also offers a critique of each and asks how our understanding of each should change to fit with our contemporary lifestyles.

Wright points out that in the West, values are largely based on a Platonic tendency to see ideals as “timeless, fixed forms to which human lives must conform”(pg. 270). I think this is true for many adherents of the “golden ratio” theory of aesthetics, who seem to be looking for an objective unchanging notion of what is beautiful.Wright points out some difficulties with this approach:

What Plato did not see, or was not able to concede, is that human history is the story of the unfolding of visions of “the good, the true, and the beautiful” as they have come to be experienced throughout the variegated history of human cultures.Rather than being fixed in character and given to us in advance of our quest, these ideals stand out ahead of us as the horizons that inspire our striving and that recede into the future as we approach them……..“Enlightenment” and all of its components, from generosity to wisdom, are moving targets” (pg. 270)

Charlie may have been on to something when he seemed to suggest above that during theRenaissance the allure of the Golden Ratio may have been stronger. In that artists and craftspersons during that time would have been well advised to utilize this ideal in their creations.

In TRUTH AND FAITH AND “B.S.” IN ART AND ZEN, James suggests that without accepting the “truth” of theories that specify aesthetic ideals, they can be used as jumping off points for creative endeavors.I believe that the same may be said for schemes like the “six perfections” in the realm of spiritual transformation.Wright suggest that in practices like Zen, students need some sense of what they are doing(“the idea of enlightenment”), and this requires the same sort of imagination that is essential to the creativity of artists and innovative thinkers. (see “HOW CREATIVITY WORKS”). [ By the way, he differentiates between imagination and fantasy; in the latter we may entertain possibilities for the future but “they are not our possibilities”. (pg.211) ] He points out that existing (traditional) theories, whether they deal with aesthetic ideals or ideals of personal traits,should not be blindly followed.But, he also says that we should not throw them out.According to Wright:

We understand only by virtue of standing within and upon traditions of understanding……The role of traditions, therefore…………..is to provide points of departure for advancing into the future.Creative thinking does not overthrow the past so much as stand upon it and use it for purposes of renewal, continually amending, rethinking, and reconstituting ideals suitable for current circumstances. (pg. 211)

Whether creating a new painting, piece of music, a new garden, a new job project or an new life, it makes sense to pay attention to what has come before us and mindfully use this knowledge as we respondto our present circumstances.

The post titled “The Evolution of Adagio: A Therapeutic Motion Machine” by guest blogger James Wilson, has quickly become the most viewed on Art and Zen Today during the past 90 days.A comment on that article from Charlie from Mass. raised some interesting questions about validity of some of the theoretical foundations used by James in the evolution of his “machine”. Specifically, the validity of the “golden mean” or “golden ratio” was questioned.(Click here to read “The Evolution of Adagio: A therapeutic Motion Machine.”)

THE GOLDEN GINGERBREAD BOY

This got me thinking about the place of “truth” and “faith” in the artistic and spiritualsystems we use to guide our practices.James later penned a response to Charlie’s comment but it could not be posted because I have placed a time limit on comments in order to cut down on the “robo-spam” sent to the blogsite.

So today’s post consists of: 1) Charlie’s comment on “The Evolution of Adagio”; 2) James’ response; 3) some additional material intended to help the reader follow along, and finally; 4) some comments by me on how I see the discussion relating to the practices of art and Zen.Because this post consists of ideas expressed by several different people, I have physically separated each authors contributions to make it easier to follow.I’d like to thank Charlie and James for inspiring me to sit down and think about all of this.

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First is the comment by Charles that was published soon after the post on Adagio by appeared in Art and Zen Today. In his post, James had written about the use of the “golden ratio” in the development of his invention.

Charles wrote:

“The golden ratio is like religion—it’s an old theory which doesn’t hold up under scientific scrutiny. I googled “skeptic ‘golden ratio” and came up with a nice quote from a comment by Phil in Australia:

“Beauty like love is one of life’s greatest mysteries. Numbers can’t explain it.”

Comment by Phil, Sydney Australia, from the following link:

The comment by Phil, referred to above by Charles, was in response to an article titled “The Golden Ratio” published on the website Skeptoid:Critical analysis of Pop Phenomena .Below is one paragraph from the original article that prompted Phil’s comment.I include it here to help put Phil’s comment into some context.

φ, the golden ratio, and the Fibonacci series are mathematically interesting and do have natural manifestations. That doesn’t mean everything, or even anything else, is based on them. The popularity and “big name” of the “divine proportion” has been the real driver of its pseudoscientific assignment to just about anything and everything. Those whose brains’ pattern-matching software is in overdrive have probably heard of the golden ratio, and so it’s the one they think of whenever they see a rectangle, or a great work of art (like the Mona Lisa, which is not based on the golden ratio), or patterns in the stock market (which don’t exist at all, let alone at the golden ratio), or in the numerology of the Bible (unless any other number is allowed to be considered just as significant). Not every claim about the golden ratio is the result of hyperactive pattern matching, but most are. At a minimum, such a claim is always a good tipoff that you should be skeptical.

The entire article and comments, including the one referenced by Charlie, can be seen at:

In this section, I have copied James’ response to the comment made by Charlie.This was not previously published on Art and Zen Today.

Charlie,

I agree that discussions around the “Golden Mean” can sometimes lapse into a matter of “faith”. From what I can tell, science has neither proven anything about it (except it has some pretty amazing mathematical properties), but it hasn’t really dis-proven anything either.

The way I think of it, and use it, is that when starting a creative project, like a piece of music or painting, it is helpful to the composer or artist or designer to create some kind of “limits”; otherwise the possibilities are infinite and can result in artistic paralysis. Take 12 tone compositions for example. Here’s a definition:

Twelve-tone technique—also known as dodecaphony, twelve-tone serialism, and (in British usage) twelve-note composition—is a method of musical composition devised by Austrian composer Arnold Schoenberg (1874–1951). The technique is a means of ensuring that all 12 notes of the chromatic scale are sounded as often as one another in a piece of music while preventing the emphasis of any one note[3] through the use of tone rows, an ordering of the 12 pitches. All 12 notes are thus given more or less equal importance, and the music avoids being in a key. The technique was influential on composers in the mid-20th century.

To me, Twelve-tone is basically a lot of BS, and it really doesn’t “avoid being in a key”, which was its primary purpose in life. However, it did get a lot of people to write a lot of music (some good, some not) simply because it gave them a “system” to work within. I.e., it got them to initiate the creative process!

And, if nothing else, this is the magic of using the Golden Means, or any other system for that matter, particularly in the arts, where, as I said above, the possibilities are basically infinite. It imposes enough limits that the artist/musician can get his/her hand/head around it.

If in fact artists and/or architects have and do use these ratios in their work, it is probably for this reason more than any other. It’s almost like; in absence of any other confining system, why NOT use it? Yes, it may just be BS, but, then again, it might not!

James Wilson

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Ok.Now it is my turn to chime in as Editor of Art and Zen Today.

It is pretty well known that artist’s of all kind often impose systems on their practice that challenge them to go beyond their usual boundaries and possibly attain to highly creative results. I covered this topic in some detail in the post titled “Buddha as a Performance Artist?”I believe that it is possible to say that these artistic or spiritual systems may be said to foster “mindful creativity” as the term is used by Langer (see“On Becoming Mindful” )But, the “mindfully creative artist is able to use the restrictions imposed by whatever system they are using to foster new ways of imagining that inevitably go beyond that system.

Often the “systems” evoked for such purpose, whether artistic or spiritual, do not really “make sense” to others and if the system is touted by the user as some sort of “truth”, the chances are that someone will find way to poke holes in it.I think that this is along the lines of what James is saying in his comment above.

About a year ago I did some googling around the internet looking for artists who explicitly used the Golden Mean concept in their work.I found one painter who made a big deal of his dedication to the Golden mean ratios in constructing his painting.It was my impression that he was consciously trying to appeal to buyers who were into new agey “sacred geometry”.I found his work to be rather boring, predictable and not very creative.This, I think, speaks to the problem of any “systems” that we impose upon ourselves.As Jim seems to say in his comment, “systems” that impose restrictions can lead to greater creativity but not when followed slavishly (i.e. without mindfulness).

The quote from Phil that Charlie included in his reply is actually the last line of a quite long comment response to the article debunking the use of the Golden Mean.In the next segment,I have included all of Phils’ comment because it seems to me that he provides an example that reinforces my notion that genuine creativity is not found in the “truth” of the system but rather in how an artist uses this system (see insert below).

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Here I have copied the full comment made by Phil in his response to the article debunking the use of the Golden Mean.Charlie referred only to the last line of this comment, but the rest of it seems to provide an example of my main point.

I had a violin maker friend who made every instrument in accordance with golden section proportions. This included sound post positioning, the ratio of string length above and below the bridge, neck length, and the actual proportions of the body themselves.

He had a great deal of success and believed that the proportions were common in some historical violin making.

He also considered the setting of the violin to be very critical and that most violinists hadn’t a clue how to do it. One major difference between a Strad and a cheaper violin, he said, is that if you pay millions of dollars for an instrument, you just might be keen to set it up properly – sound post position, bridge positioning and shape etc

Whether or not Golden proportions help – he was convinced they did – the real magic was in the hands of the maker who completed the task and the final adjustments. I am sure that applies equally to everything from architecture to furniture. Sometimes I think that in attributing success to the golden section the creator of a masterpiece is perhaps a little too modest – or his critic a little too coldly scientific

Beauty like love is one of life’s greatest mysteries. Numbers can’t explain it.

Ellen Langer’s Book On Becoming an Artist consistently prompts the reader to question any existing artistic systems that they encounter as they embark on their creative journey.( seeELLEN LANGER ON THE “TALENT MYTH” ). Especially when we are beginners in any realm, we tend to look for some “system” that provides us guidelines for how to proceed.There is nothing wrong with this, but to the extent that we get “stuck” in the system, our creativity will suffer.I think that this alsoapplies to artists who have been creative enough to evolve their own “systems”, so to speak, of making art.When they are no longer mindful and begin automatically doing what has been successful for them in the past, there is no creative growth.The ability to push beyond even self- imposed boundaries is why artists like Picasso, Miles Davis and Bob Dylan, to name a few,are acknowledged as creative geniuses. And, so it goes, I would suggest, in the realm of the spirit.This brings me to Zen, and most forms of Buddhism generally.

Buddhist thought and practices inevitably entail boundaries or limitations.Furthermore, they often don’t make rational sense and I have heard myself and fellow Zen students refer to various teachings as “B.S.”The non-rational aspects of the teaching require that the student develop a degree of “faith”, to use the term that Jim seems to use derogatively.I would suggest that “faith” is only problematic when it stifles mindfulness.It is important to point out that Buddhist practice does not demand “blind faith”.Rather it requires a willingness (i.e. “necessary “faith”) to try out a certain viewpoint and set of practices to see whether or how they work in one’s own life.Buddha famously said something along the lines of the quote below (I don’t have “faith” that Buddha actually said everything attributed to him):

“Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it. Do not believe in anything simply because it is spoken and rumored by many. Do not believe in anything simply because it is found written in your religious books. Do not believe in anything merely on the authority of your teachers and elders. Do not believe in traditions because they have been handed down for many generations. But after observation and analysis, when you find that anything agrees with reason and is conducive to the good and benefit of one and all, then accept it and live up to it.”

The Zen literature is especially contradictory and difficult to make sense of because it points out again and again, that Zen is simply a system, and that if you use the system wisely you end up transcending the system itself.This does not seem “rational”, at least to most beginners. It requires some degree of “faith” to continue with Buddhist practice until one can develop an understanding of how this works.Eventually, the student sees that there is no set view which is considered to be true and there is no end to discovering this; that is, as you discover new ways of seeing your life, you find that you can not rely (i.e. have “faith in” ) on that viewpoint forever.

To the extent that Buddhist practice leads to a constant re-visioning of one’s self and reality, it could be seen as the ultimate creative practice.Dale Wright makes this point in his recent book, The Six Perfections.Interestingly, Wright uses language that is consistent with Langer’s where “mindfulness” and “creativity” are equated. Wright’s book examines the various conventions and guidelines for attaining enlightened “Wisdom” as they have been passed down in Buddhist literature.However, Wright makes a point of reminding the reader over and over that blind conformity to these strictures is not what the journey is all about.“Wisdom” says Wright “is the ability to recognized what is and what is not an appropriate guide for dealing with situations skillfully.”(pg. 233).

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For a variety of reasons it seems that artists of all types are drawn to the practice of Zen. For this installment, I asked four other artists from the Vista Zen Center to join me in providing a pairing of poetry and visual images. Each combination is very different from the others but each reflects the committed practice of the artist. I hope you take the time to savor each of these pairings.

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We begin with the work of Jiyu Roshi, who is the founder and teacher at The Vista Zen Center.His digital paintings may be seen at his website.

"No Choice?" Digital Paiting by Jiyu Roshi

No Choice?

The Way is not difficult

for those who do not pick and choose.

The Way is not difficult

for those who do pick and choose.

When you walk the Way,

just walk the Way.

It is not near,

it is not far.

It just is.

Just do not get in the way

of the Way.

Or, Just get in the way

of the Way.

Either way Is the Way.

Either way is.

Either way

Is neither

The Way

Nor not

the

Way.

I think I’ll go away

Now.

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David Clark’s blogsite “FromThe Lone Oak” is a wonderful showcase of his poetry, often accompanied by visual images. The image below was created by David on his I Pad.

"Sitting" created by David Clark on his I Pad using "Paper 53 App"

“Sitting”, David Clark

Without Effort

Unattended and without effort,

The Earth spins on,

Endlessly describing an arc

Around a star

That never blinks.

Rain, without urging,

Always finds its way

Back to the sea.

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Jane Mushinsky teaches literature at Mira Costa College and has contributed poems for various publications and poetry readings. She recently returned from Kenyon Ohio where she had won a spot at the Kenyon Review Summer Poetry Workshop.

Most of you remember a post from the past that looked at the interesting ways that Sean Voisen found to immerse himself in the interstitial areas between art, technology and spirituality.(See ” Art, Zen and Technology: A Visit With Sean Voisen”) Today’s post is written by guest blogger James Wilson, who is playing in the same field and looking at similar overlapping areas.

Yes this is the same James Wilson whose appearance here on earth was largely orchestrated by me in an effort to manifest a life-long playmate. (See “Aliens From Inner Space”) This is the same guy who used to give me nightmares by shaking his crib all night long in his efforts to “escape” it’s material and confining nature.He’s been rattling his crib all his life and the post below provides a look at the wondrous possibilities “beyond the crib”.

By James Wilson

When I was still a student in music school at Boston University, I became aware of what I felt to be a subtle motion, or flow, in music that nobody was talking about. It was something slow, smooth, and not a direct component of the usual suspects: rhythm and harmony. At the same time, since I was a student of composition, I was studying the theories of Heinrich Schenker and others who suggested that the great Masters constructed their music with a conscious implementation of “tension and release” within their musical structures. In other words, their compositions would build to a climax, then release the built up tension, repeat again, and so on, taking us, the listener, on a virtual musical and emotional roller-coaster ride. This was also in alignment with what I felt and heard in music.

Dr. Norden

Also during this time, I was studying with a wonderful professor at Boston U., Dr. Hugo Norden, who was considered the foremost authority on J.S. Bach, counterpoint, and also on the topic of using the Golden Ratio in music, art, and architecture (“Form: the silent language”, is one of his books on the topic).

The “Golden Ratio”” (also often referred to as: extreme and mean ratio, medial section, divine proportion, divine section (Latin: sectio divina), golden proportion, golden cut, and golden number) is exactly that, a mathematical ratio, which is 1:1.618. In music, Dr. Norden theorized that it was used by the Masters (again, consciously), when laying out the form of the piece they were about to write. Basically, the idea is to lay out a piece of music as a function of time. In other words, if you plan for the piece to last, say, 5 minutes, then at minute 3:06 (1/1.618 = .618 * 5 minutes = 3.1, or 3:06 minutes) the composer would make some extraordinary event occur at 3:06 to divide the time line. This might be a jarring modulation, a loud chord, introduction of a second theme, etc.

This ratio was also used heavily in architecture, especially during Greek and Roman periods, and even way before the Greeks! Often this ratio was used as the ratio of width to height, i.e.

Authors such as Matila Ghyka, postulate that the Golden Ratio was used by well-known artists:

With these forces at work, I wanted to design and build a device that would:

Visually display the subtle “motion” I was experiencing when listening to music

Visually display the up-and-down/tension-release in music,

Incorporate the design principles of the Golden Ratio.

To do this, I incorporated another concept that has held fascination for me; the sine curve. The sine curve occurs often in pure and applied mathematics, as well as physics, engineering, signal processing and many other fields. Its most basic form as a function of time (t) is:

BTW: For those interested in religious symbols, the key idea here is that the sine curve is formed by the circle as a function of time. Circles commonly represent unity, wholeness, and infinity. Without beginning or end, without sides or corners, the circle is also associated with the number one. In other words, “perfection”, when brought into the flow of time = the sine curve!

Original "Adagio"

All this put together, resulted in my building a visual device that moves very slowly in front of the viewer’s eyes. I have named it “The Adagio”. A Video of the Adagio in action, along with a piece by Mozart, can be seen HERE.

The Adagio incorporates the sine curve, as well as Golden Ratios in the dimensions of the container, and in the angle of inclination of the sine curve itself. The slow moving line can be speed adjusted to the correct “flow” of the music, and the upward and downward movement of the lighted line follows the tension and release of the music being played while you watch.

As stated above, the original construction of Adagio was purely as a means to visualize motion-in-music, and to encapsulate the up/down emotional tension in music. It has done this beyond my expectations.

However, almost by accident, the Adagio was used in a biofeedback study at Nova University, in 1978. It was a very well conducted scientific experiment designed to differentiate between activities associated with our right brain hemisphere, and our left-brain hemisphere. It was discovered that by activating the right hemisphere of the experimental subjects, the Adagio has stress-reducing characteristics! A summary of the study can be seen HERE.

I finally have time to explore usage of my invention and am doing a “crowd funding” to build a commercial version of The Adagio. My goal is to:

Produce a production model that will be more aesthetically pleasing than the original prototype,

Produce a production model with greater durability suitable for consumer use, and

A production model constructed with readily available components.

Here’s a concept drawing of what I envision this new commercial version of the Adagio to look like:

(Click the image above to activate)

You can watch the video about Adagio’s history and potential uses here:

The quote above was embedded in my post “Mindfulness Wars: Langer Versus Buddha?”It was not until I was proofreading the post that I realized how profound these 5 sentences were.Interestingly, Jiyu Roshi used this quote as a basis for a talk at the Vista Zen Center a few days after the post had been published andI found myself feeling a bit embarrassed as I had not printed author’s name, mainly because I did not take the time to look for it.I later learned that the quote is attributed to Bhante Henepola Gunaratana, whose excellent book “Mindfulness In Plain English” I had read years ago.

In “Mindfulness Wars”, I describedmindfulness training as a process where one learns to catch themselves (“remembering to remember”) as they drift into prolonged thought-sequences and then refocus their attention on internal sensations. (See Creative Refocusing) This kind of training may be viewed as one where a person learns to “awaken” themselves again and again from the “sleep” or “hypnosis” of ordinary consciousness which consists primarily of what might be called “internal dialogue”.These internal dialogues are necessarily oriented towards either past or future experiences and to the extent that we can awaken ourselves, however briefly, we become aware of (or are in) the present moment as experienced through our somatic awareness. (see The Artist is Present)

Through meditation or some other form of mindfulness training, one can learn, over time, to also “awaken” more often in the midst of daily activities and interactions.So the “time” that Guraratana is speaking of in the above quote, is the spit second that one gains when momentarily remembering/catching/awakening themselves before reacting automatically and mindlessly to whatever is going on around them.This split second allows for a consideration of the consequences (for oneself and others) of any mindless reactions and for a creative (i.e. new ) response instead.This is the choice that Guraratana says is won when we have time to mindfully consider our responses to what is happening to us in any moment.

Although, as seen in “Mindfulness Wars”, Langer’s approach to mindfulness is slightly different, the above description seems consistent with how she describes personal “reinvention” through engaging oneself in various artistic pursuits.Late in the book is a Chapter entitled ” The Mindful Choice” which begins with a quote from Picasso saying ” I don’t know in advance what I am going to put on canvas any more than I decide beforehand what colors I am going to use”. Langer goes on to say the following:

It’s time to get started.Now that we understand that we shouldn’t worry about what other will think about our first painting, poem, or whatever it is we choose to do, that comparing ourselves with others is not in our best interest, that talent is not necessary, in short, that we are going to engage our creativity mindfully, it is time to go to the store and get whatever we need.Once we are there however, the simple task of getting ready often quickly becomes daunting.How do we decide what we need….In the face of such uncertainty, we perhaps ought to pay close attention to Picasso’s words, if we are to proceed mindfully, perhaps we shouldn’t be interested in knowing the answers to these question in advance.We should just buy whatever colors appeal to us, whatever bushes we think interesting, and some surface on which to paint.(pg. 212)

The remainder of her chapter echoes this same advice – decisions are made in ignorance because if we knew what to do we would just do it. Decisions are problematic, says Langer only when we think that we should know, up front, what the right choice is. She goes on to provide an interesting analysis ( too lengthy to discuss in detail here) of what occurs during decision-making.The essence of what she says sounds very Buddhist, although she eschews Buddhist terminology.Her main point is that since we never can know the outcome of any decision we make and since conditions are constantly changing, the best we can do is make whatever decision is called for based on whatever information we have at hand and whatever makes sense to us in the moment.So, whether we are talking about creating art or any other areas of life, we can always make new decisions based on whatever is happening in that later moment.Langer argues that neither forestalling decisions (deliberating endlessly with the hope that new information will become available) nor automatically relying on some external rule or advice encourage mindful living.

At one point Langer declares “For some people , then decision-making is not stressful at all, because they are content with whatever consequences result” (pg. 217) .This, and other comments, sounds very much like they are expressing the Buddhist ideal of equanimity; that is, not being attached to certain outcomes. A famous Chinese Zen poem begins with the line “The Great Way is not difficult for those who have no preferences”. (Third Ch’an Patriarch Chien-chih Seng-ts’an) Langer would probably say that letting go of comparing oneself with others, and concerns about how one is being evaluated will lead to one taking themselves “less seriously” and thus, less concerned about always making the “right” decision or choice.

Based on my own experiences with painting, I agree with Langer that this type of activity canhelp one to learn not to take things so seriously.So-called “mistakes” (i.e. “bad” decisions”) can often leadto later decisions that result in one going in directions never imaged. Furthermore, one can always white-out the canvas and simply begin again, hopefully having learned something from the so called “mistake”.To the extent that one can gradually drop concerns about how well one is doing according to some set of arbitrary external standards, one can let go and enjoy the process of creating and any choices or decisions that need to be made can become less stressful.

At the risk of flogging a dead horse, I want to reiterate what I said in “Mindfulness Wars”.The process that Langer refers to as “Reinventing Yourself Through Mindful Creativity” can be strengthened by the kind of mindfulness meditation recommended by Gunaratana in “Mindfulness in Plain English

In the long Langer quote, printed above, she seems to suggest that after reading the earlier chapters on letting go of self-evaluation and various anxieties about our creative practice, the reader should now be ready to dive in and start creating mindfully. But her next sentence suggests that she knows it is not that easy.Having painted for a period of ten years, I can attest to the fact that every time I approach my studio, I am confronted (i.e. I confront myself) with all sorts of thoughts and worries that can undermined the enjoyment of painting as well as restrict my creativity.

I have read interviews with artists of all sorts and have concluded that such thoughts and worries are simply part of the creative process.I believe, along with Langer, that simply engaging in artistic practices for a long period of time can help a practitioner learn to live with this fact.But, I also believe that daily mindfulness training can facilitate and deepen this process.

The time that Gunaratana says is gained when we practice mindfulness can allow us to nip in the bud all the creativity-defeating thoughts such as those covered in Langer’s early chapters.These kinds of thoughts infuse themselves into all aspects of our lives and it may seem surprising that they appear even when we are engaged in activities that we love to do.I would suggest however, that it may be easier to become mindful about them, and eventually let go of them, when we are doing things we are passionate about.

In the literature promoting mindfulness training, authors commonly emphasize how the practitioner can use the time gained in mindfulness to re-channel angry reactions into responses that lead to less suffering for themselves and others.I do not think that it is far fetched to consider such redirection as a form of mindful creativity since the alternative, bought by time, allow for a novel response.Pairing daily mindfulness training with a mindful approach to fun activities, such as the arts, can provide a practicum of sorts for developing creative mindfulness in the widest sense of the term.Here one may learn how to extend his or her mindfulness training into activities which require moment by moment decision-making.By learning to “gain time” through practicing mindfulness in such situations, the practitioner is also gaining skills that can be used in situations where the consequences of his or her choices are perceived as being more “serious. And, there is reason to believe that the time necessary to make skillful choices diminishes with mindfulness practice (see “Yeah Man: Improvisation in Jazz, Comedy and Zen).

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A customer approaches a small table set up among the produce booths at the Hollywood Farmer’s Market.A small sign on the table reads:

Poem Store

Your Subject, Your Price

Yes

The poet, who sits behind the table asks her customer for a topic and is told “Since Wednesday”.In about 3 minutes she types and then reads the following poem to her customer:

Time has moved along

slowly, inching with heat

and asking us to understand

what can happen in a single

day, in the rise of a week…..

The customer, with tears in his eyes tells the poet: “So Martha started chemo on Wednesday” and the poet simply nods.

This above exchange was described in a recent article by Deborah Netburn in the LA Times titled “Poems While You Wait”.The article focuses on the unusual occupation/practice of a poet by the name of Jacqueline Suskin.Jacqueline can be found most days set up at a small booths at Farmer’s markets and similar events . The payment is up to the customers but most pay around $5 for their poem. Suskin always asks if she can read her poem because she considers poetry to be an “oral art”. Some people try to think up far out topics but most ask for a poem that somehow relates to current events in their lives.She has a lot of repeat customers and newcomers are usually surprised at how relevant and poignant their personal poems turn out..

Jacqueline is quoted as saying: “The thing I like about Poem Store is that it is not about me.I’m not thinking about myself. I’m writing about my interaction with a person, and I want to give them something that is just theirs.”

Because she understands that her customers are wanting to buyvegetables and get right home, she works very quickly.. According to Jacqueline: “Part of the exercise is to get down immediately what comes to me.They are like little mantras, little prayers that get handed out”.

Jacqueline thinks that people generally ask for poems that might provide them help with or insight into personal problems:“They want hope, or confidence, or they just need someone to see who they are.. Half the time I feel like I am a therapist or a psychic”.

The poet doesn’t know how she manages to write poems so quickly.“There is just this blurry area there.There is no answers to how I can do it so quickly, so I don’t question it”. She goes on to say, however that it is exhausting work:“This is the most physically draining thing I’ve ever done in my life.When I’m done writing poems for four hours for people I don’t know, I’m like a zombie.My brain is mush”.

Those of you who have been reading my past blogs, can probably see why I was intrigued by this article.The quickness of her responses to requests for poems resembles the improvisational skills of jazz musicians and the storied shenanigans of traditional Zenmasters (seeYEAH MAN: IMPROVISATION IN JAZZ, COMEDY AND ZEN) ).Although Jacqueline seems to be making a living writing poems, there is a selfless element to what she does. One of the elements of the Buddhist, Eightfold Path is right livelihood, which essentially means that a practioner should make a living in a job that is consistent with Buddhist ethics and ideals.Certainly, Suskin’s Poem Store seems to be an example of this.

Jacqueline Suskin’s interactions with the public also remind me a lot of Marina Abramovic’s performance piece at MOMA where she sat staring into the eyes of museum visitors during opening hours for a month.In a post called “The Artist is Present”, I admired the Zen-like quality of Abramovic’s art.Both Marina and Jacqueline attest to the strain of having to “be present” with strangers for hours on end, but both also seem to draw an immense degree of satisfaction from their actions.

I think many artists become depressed or cynical because they feel that the public does not appreciate their creativity to the degree that they would wish for.They suffer alone and are not able to feel that they can find a way to use their creative skills to benefit others.It seems that Jacqueline has found a unique means for accomplishing this, while still supporting herself doing the thing she loves to do..I wonder whether the Poem Store concept, mightbe something that other artists could, with some creative “tweaking”, utilize to energize their own practices?I’d love to hear reactions from some of my artist readers (or anyone else for that matter) about their take on this article.To read the original article, use the following address:

http://www.latimes.com/includes/sectionfronts/A1.pdf

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Reading this post might make you more mindful. Here is how. The term “mindfulness” is used differently by Langer and by those in the Buddhist tradition. Langer says one way to become more mindful is to see “similarities in things thought different and the differences in things taken to be similar” (pg. 16, On Becoming An Artist: Reinventing Yourself Through Mindful Creativity). Here is an opportunity for you to play with that notion and hopefully become more mindful. Or, you could choose, mindfully of course, to check out what has gone viral on YouTube today.

In my last blog post I described the Genjo Practice at the Vista Zen Center as having certain parallels to Ellen Langer’s “program” for “personal reinvention”.The arts have long been associated with Zen practice and, although I don’t have any hard evidence to support this, I suspect that these art practices have been used as sort of a practicum where Zen Monks could apply what they learn sitting on a cushion to everyday life.As Langer points out, learning to make mindful choices is easier when these choices are regarding activities that are seen as not having “serious” consequences. (See last blog).I also asserted my belief that engagement in so called non-serious activities as a way of developing creative mindfulness is likely to be more effective (at least for most people) if carried out as a complement to more formal meditation practice.

Is the glass half mindful or half mindless?

Here, I want to lay out why I think this may be the case, but to do so I need to deal with the fact that not everyone agrees on what the term “mindfulness” means.Almost every contemporary review of the mindfulness literature suggests that Langer’s concept and that developed within the context of Buddhism are not the same.

For Langer, creative mindfulness is a way of making choices that are not determined by from old established “rules, routines and mind-sets” (pg.16) , to use her words.She recognizes that her understanding of the concept has some relationship to the term “mindfulness” as it has developed in the Buddhist tradition but does not feel that two are the same.According to Langer:

“For me the two way ofbecoming mindful are not at odds with each other.Becoming more mindful does not involve achieving some altered stat of consciousness through year of meditation.It requires, rather, learning to switch modes of thinking about ourselves and the world.It is very easy to learn to be mindful, which makes doing so appealing to those unwilling to sit for twenty minutes twice a day.Mindfulness is simply the process of noticing new things.” (pg. 16)

I am not certain why Langer associates Buddhist mindfulness practice with “altered states of consciousness, unless she sees what I have been referring to in this blog as being “alive/awake/present” as an altered stated.In some way it is an altered state in the sense that most of us, most of the time are not fully alive/awake/present.Yet as I look throughout Langer’s book, it seems to me that when she describes people acting mindfully, she is describing precisely someone who is alive/awake/present and so is talking about the same thing that I see as the ideal of most spiritual disciplines.

When Langer writes about her (and others’) experiences when she started creating art, she uses terms like “enlivening”, “engaging” “being there” and “being fully present” as she describes mindfully making choices required in such projects.She presents evidence from experiments that suggest that engaging in mindful creativity leads to the creators to feel more “authentic, and prompts others to perceive the mindful creators as more “charismatic” and their creations as “more interesting”.All of this suggests that Langer’s concept of mindfulness is closely related, if not the same as what I have been referring to as being alive/awake/present. Since I see becoming more alive/awake/present as being the ideal of the kinds meditation practices that have been associated with Buddhism, including Zen, I would suggest that the process Langer calls “Reinventing Yourself through Mindful Creativity” is in accord with this ideal.

Langer argues that immersing oneself in a creative practice , like painting, can lead to a gradual development (“Reinventing Yourself”) of mindfulness in all areas of one’s life.I do not dispute this possibility but would suggest that for many people, the generalization of mindfulness into other aspects of life will be limited.One need only point to the biographies of numerous creative people who also lead miserable self-destructive lives as evidence to support my contention. I also know from my own experience that simply doing art does not generally make one consistently mindful in either art or other areas of life. I am also aware of many people who have taken up an artistic practice and are satisfied to produce pieces over and over again, that may display their new-found skills, but not much in the way of “mindful creativity”. This is why I suggested in my last post that for most people a creative practice, as prescribed by Langer, plus mindfulness meditation/training would be more effective in leading to the development of more widespread and consistent mindfulness.

Mindfulness meditation is the central practice in the Hinayana branch of Buddhism and these techniques have recently found their way into Western psychotherapy.Kabat-Zinn, who has been a leader in this development defines “mindfulness as :”the awareness that arises through paying attention on purpose in the present moment — non-judgmentally.”There are various techniques for doing this but they all require setting aside a time for a meditative practice in order to foster and learn to consistently apply this purpose.The Zen literature does not often use the term “mindfulness” but it seems to me that the practice of Zazen, often referred to as “just sitting” also fosters this non-evaluative attention that Kabut-Zinn describes above.

Kabut-Zinn goes on to say:

Mindfulness isn’t about getting your way or meditating so that you can be better at something. My definition of healing is coming to terms with things as they are, so that you can do whatever you can to optimize your potential, whether you are living with chronic pain or having a baby. You can’t control the universe, so mindfulness involves learning to cultivate wisdom and equanimity— not passive resignation—in the face of what Zorba the Greek called the full catastrophe of the human condition.

This sounds very much as a way of describing the ideals of Zen as well as those put forth by Langer.Langer’s work seems to focus on making decisions that are based on being awake/alive/present, while the meditation routines described as mindfulness training and Zazen, may be seen as a practice for acquiring the micro-skills necessary to learn to become awake/alive/present moment by moment.One way of thinking about what happens in mindfulness training is that one acquires the skills to awaken or enliven themselves over and over again in meditation, when demands are few, with the idea that eventually these skills will “spill over” into more active situations.

In Zazen and other mindfulness meditation practices, the practioner learns to “catch” themselves as they drift off into protracted thought-trains and learn to refocus their attention on bodily sensations that are happening in the moment.In earlier articles I referred to this as “remembering to remember”. Having such skill would help immensely in making the kind of mindful decisions that Langer calls for in her book.

In comparing Langer’s notion of “mindfulness” with how that term is used in Buddhist meditation and the subsequent uses in Western therapy, Scott Bishop says the following”

Langer’s mindfulness involves the active construction of new categories and meaning when one pays attention to the stimulus properties of primarily external situations.While our own definition emphasizes the inhibition of such elaborate processes as one pays attention to primarily internal stimuli (thoughts , feeling and sensations).Bishop et. al. pg. 6 (.http://www.prevention.psu.edu/projects/documents/Bishopetal.article.pdf)

I think it is possible to see the interconnection between these two facets of mindfulness if we remember that creativity involves dropping old ideas or approaches as well as developing new ones.The literature on creativity shows again and again that new ideas and solutions are most likely to develop when we stop engaging in rational thought processes See( Sudden Insight)

What is learned in mindfulness training is how to let go of old persisting thoughts, ideas, rules, mind-sets etc. by expanding one’s awareness into the somatic realm, as described by in To Know Flow or No Flow. This form of meditation is sometimes referred to as “insight meditation.”The idea here is that new ways of seeing things can result from letting go of thoughts, mirroring the results of studies in the creativity literature.(Sudden Insight and Creativity)

In previous posts onrefocusing and reframing, I argued that this skill makes in easier for people to make creative choices in everday situations.So someone who has consistently honed the ability to “drop” out of the “thought realm” and into the “realm of bodily sensations” by practicing meditation, should have an advantage of making mindful decisions in the heat of everyday life, whether making art or making a living.

Langer’s focus seems to be on what happens when people are actively engaged in daily activities and does not really write about the mechanism of “letting go” that is the essence ofmindfulness training.Yet, if you look closely at what she says, there is nothing to contradict or dispute the importance of this “letting go”.In fact she speaks directly about the importance of dropping social comparisons and subsequent self evaluations, – a process she describes as replacing our “evaluating self” with our “experiencing self”. This latter term seems to refer to our innate capabilities to pay attention to the kind somatic awareness that is emphasized in mindfulness training/meditation.What she is writing about here is the importance of becoming “non-judgmental” in the same sense as practiced in the dailypractice of mindfulness meditation/training (see Kabat-Zinn’s quote earlier).

In her experiments Langer prompts some subjects into becoming more mindful by asking them to look for things that they would not otherwise look for before making decisions.Langer’s assumption is that by engaging in artistic pursuits, people can learn to do this on their own.I believe that this can happen but have doubts about often and how consistently the general population will be able to learn to “awaken” themselves from being caught up in old habitual thought forms so they can discover mindfully creative solutions to everyday problems.

I believe that some people may naturally have developed these self-awakening skills naturally. and find it easy to move mindfully into new activities with no need for mindfulness training.However, most of us have not I suspect that Langer is one of those who may not feel the need from a daily regime of mindfulness training based on what she says in the quote below (and others in the book)–which would help explain why she has little interest in meditation practice:

To my good fortune, I’ve never thought to ask myself whether I have the talent to do something. If the activity- academic, artistic , or physical- seemed interesting, I tried it. If I didn’t quite get it, I tried it differently. Why should I know how to do something I’ve never done before?”

Langer says that it is easy to learn to be mindful because it is simply the process of noticing new things, and it is easier than meditating twice a day.However,I would argue that most of the population will not find themselves becoming significantly more mindful in all areas of their lives simply by taking up painting or gardening.On the other hand I feel that such “creative pursuits can be excellent ways of allowing one’s growing mindfulness as developed in meditation to “spill over” into daily life activities.By engaging in activities that are generally perceived as “less serious”, there is the opportunity to face challenges that will help reveal one’s degree of mindfulness or mindlessness moment by moment without worrying as much about whether one is making right or wrong decisions.

I agree with Langer’s general idea that engaging in various forms of creative endeavors can help propel one on a path of self-regeneration. Langer seems to say that we can become more mindful simply by “learning to switch modes of thinking about ourselves and the world.” This “switching” for Langer can occur simply by remembering : 1) that any rules were made by a person at some point and that those rules may not apply in the present situation and 2) to look for differences in similarities and similarities in differences.But this is not always easy when we are in the midst of everyday interactions and activities. Most of us, most of the time do not “remember to remember”, which I see as key to this “switching” process that Langer refers to.

This is why the techniques learned in meditation practices like Zazen can help in this process of “Remembering to Remember”. One who has spent the necessary time in meditation practice, watching how his or her thoughts form and disappear and learning techniques that allow “refocusing/reframing” when they catch themselves can help them to “remember to remember” in a wide range of situations.This ability to “awaken” oneself before getting caught up in the thought- streams that reinforce the perceptual and thinking habits that foster mindless reactions is not really the focus of Langer’s work, although nothing she writes contracticts it’s importance. However, this skill is exactly what Zazen and other mindfulness training practices could provide to add depth to the kind of self-reinvention that Langer purposes.

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(The 2000 year-old art form of Japanese brush painting is spiritually rooted in Zen Buddhism. My friend and fellow Zen student, Beth Moskal Milligan has practiced both Zen and Sumi-e and finds that the two disciplines are mutually supportive in her spiritual growth. I have asked Beth to be a “guest blogger” for this post. I think you will find her piece, found below, a fun, informative and inspiring read. It is also a great example of the “Genjo Practice”, as described in the previous post. Steve Wilson)

Leaping Fish by Beth Moskal Milligan

Zen tells us to wake up! How does one do that? One way is to leave a totally familiar environment and move to a strange, new one. That’s the way I started the process-leaving almost heaven-West Virginia for heaven-Southern California. Ocean, desert, palm trees, odd flowering plants, low humidity, altered seasons, day after day of sunshine, multiculturalism, surfing, avocados, abundant wealth (seemingly). I knew 2 people-the friends I was renting from. The rest was an adventure awaiting. But first I had to fall apart. And then in the process of finding the pieces and putting them together in a new way, I came to Zen, specifically the Vista Zen Center. My son, Ryan, came to live with me and was a practicing Zen student of the San Francisco Zen Center. He had his sitting practice and I was intrigued. I was from a strong Lutheran background and had been involved in the Christian charismatic movement and later became very interested in meditation and the labyrinth, both of which introduced me to the value of silence. When I entered the Vista Zendo (meditation hall) for the first time, I knew I belonged. A welcoming, strong silence was present there and there were people who believed in its value. I knew this was a place where I could grow from the bottom up, and explore the possibilities that had presented themselves in my new world. The pieces began to come together.

Landscape by Beth Moskal Milligan

One of those pieces was art. I had been an art major for a year in college but had dropped out after my freshman year. I dabbled in drawing and watercolor a little bit in my adult life but always had a problem with being too judgmental of the work and not able to enjoy the process except for a few brief periods of inspiration. But the desire to create was there, just buried. It was awakened in an art workshop taught by Alessandra at the Zen center and the spark became a flame when I discovered Japanese sumi-e painting. Minimalist and nature-inspired, a technique where every brush stroke counts and taught in a classroom in which the Japanese teacher, Takashi Ijichi, creates a peaceful and concentrated environment, the focus of which is finding your vision and putting it on paper. The focus is on the process, the result is fun and interesting and occasionally even looks good. Everyone’s creation is different and uniquely theirs. It is a discipline but it is not onerous.

I take Tuesdays as a day off from work and attend painting class in the afternoon and sit at the Zendo in the evening. The two complement each other;PRACTICE, DISCIPLINE, FOCUS, DISCOVERY—AND JOY.

DISCIPLINEDiscipline enables the practice, it brings us to the practice in time and in place. It makes the decision for us to come to the practice. Make the time, prepare a place, enable the process: the painting, the sitting, in the art room, in the Zen Center, at home where the place is ready and waiting, for painting, for sitting.

Beth's Meditation Space

Beth's Painting Space

FOCUSPay attention. Be the hawk perched and watching, the flower blooming, the horse galloping, the mountain standing, the fish swimming and leaping, the enso circling. Be one in the moment with the subject of the painting. Be one in the moment in the stillness of sitting. Practice and Be.

"Bodhidharma Bird in Contemplation" by Beth Moskal Milligan

There are 3 main elements to both my painting practice and my Zen meditation practice. The teacher, the meditation practice, and the Sangha (spiritual community) . One on one relationship with my teachers is a very valuable part of both practices. During our Zazen sessions, I meet individually with Jiyu Roshi to discuss my practice and progress. During my painting classes, I meet individually with Takashi Ijichi to carefully observe his painting technique as he paints on my individual tablet and answers any questions I might have about the subject. Sitting meditation occurs in the quiet Zendo. Sumi-e painting is also a form of meditation, we practice in a community library setting. And each activity involves a Sangha, a group of people dedicated to practicing that unique meditative discipline and who become intertwined with each other through that unique practice.

DISCOVERY I have discovered that the process, not the results is the important part of these activities. Living in the process and not living for the results enables me to live in the present moment, immersed in the activity. This is very refreshing for body, soul and spirit. And the results are not completely under my control and the results are more often than not, surprising. In a painting, the ink may be absorbed by the paper in a very interesting way or the lights and darks of the ink formed a wave of water or a flower petal that I did not plan. In Zazen practice, calmness in the face of a difficult situation or a solution to a previously unsolvable problem may present itself unexpectedly. The terms ‘beginner’s mind’ and ‘non-grasping’ come to mind to describe these occurrences.

"Ocean Waves and Rocks" by Beth Moskal Milligan

JOYJoy results in being in the process, in creating, in relationship with my teachers and in relationship with the other students and Sangha members, being a part of a long and honored tradition, passed on person to person, no technology needed! Simplicity indeed! Learning, growing, focusing, practicing, discovering. relating—Life.

" Galloping Colt" by Beth Moskal Milligan

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If you have been following my last few posts, you know that I have been riffing on the book On Becoming an Artist by Ellen Langer, a professional psychologist and amateur painter.Langer suggests that painting and other creative arts can be a way of developing mindfulness and the path to a richer, more authentic and satisfying life.As I mentioned in my last post, the author sees our tendency to compare ourselves with others and evaluate ourselves according, as the biggest block to developing creative mindfulness.In this post, I will focus on one chapter where Langer tackles what she sees as the most damaging belief that prevents people from engaging in new activities such as painting.Even though we understand that engaging in new activities can lead to a more rewarding life, we often avoid doing so because we are convinced that we have no talent in that area. The name of the chapter from Langer’s book dealing with this is called “The Myth of Talent”.

WHO IS TO SAY WHO IS TALENTED OR CREATIVE?

In this chapter, Langer makes the bold declaration that: “Everybody has an equal talent for everything” ( pg. 171). Drawing upon the biographies of successful artists, and studies of artists, she concludes that creations by people generally seen as creative artists are more a product of learned skills rather the result of some inherited quality.In other words, what we usually consider to be some innate or inner quality, is largely a matter of learned skills.According to Langer:

“we usually impute to people who are very talented, like Picasso, a knowingness that he wouldn’t recognize as he embarked on a new work. It isn’t that the talented “know” what they are about to do as much that they are willing to start something and see where it leads them. We, however, tend to focus on their results and ignore the struggles, uncertainties and false starts.” (pg. 150)

Langer points to recent laboratory studies of Mondrian’s work that showed that he constantly scraped his canvases to revised his paintings until he was satisfied.According to Langer, “Like all of us, Mondrian painted step-by-step, despite how he or anyone else might describe his work”(pg. 159) The final product and the statements of critics and/or the artist, leave the impression that the work could only be the product of a quality (genius or talent) that most of us do not processes. The failure to grasp this error in logic, prevents countless numbers of people from trying activities that they might find rewarding and which could lead to their developing their own unique talent in that area.

As the author points out, most of the artists now considered to be talented were not seen as such at first or even during their lifetimes.Langer asks:

“Would we want to say these artists were not talented because they lacked audience appreciation?Of course not, yet many of us consider their works and can only feel inferior by comparison……..By definition, “everyone can’t be great at something” if we think that is so. No. everyone can’t be equally great if we hold still a single criterion for evaluation.But criteria can and do vary” (pg. 172)

With "mindless judging" most of us become convinced that we have no talent.

When we subscribe to a single rule or set of criteria, we are reacting mindlessly.If the artists that are now considered talented had mindlessly accepted the current cannons on what constituted talent, they would never have begun their practice.The whole point of Langer book is to help her readers break through the kind of mindlessness that will deter them from trying something new and potentially rewarding; new activities that could possibly help the readers learn to become more mindfully creative. One way Langer attempts to do this is by suggesting that they mindfully consider the consequences of exploring new creative pursuits This is nicely summed up when she asks:

“If I try, and fail, am I any worse off?It is interesting exercise to attempt to do things we think we can’t do, but would like to try just for fun.If we don’t globalize the result and conclude “I can’t paint (or more global still, I can’t do anything artistic) because I can’t draw this dog,” for example, what is lost?Whose affection is at risk?What opportunity that we’ve counted on will not be ours? … (pg. 172)

I have personally found in my own painting process, that my most “creative” painting occurs when I am willing to take risks- doing something that I’d never seen done before or something that I knew could end up being considered “a mistake”.Taking such “risks” is not easy and these kinds of risk never seem to go away as you develop as a painter.Risking “failure” is part of the territory but is also what makes painting (or anything else) a challenge and fun.It requires a fundamental shift in one’s world view where we put our choices and our actions into perspective and to stop taking ourselves so seriously.

Now, dear readers, “for your moment of Zen” (apologies to The Daily Show’s John Stewart) we will include one more quotation from Langer’s book.It is a continuation of the quote I included immediately above where she is talking about taking chances to do something like painting which you have never done before.Below she continues byapplying the same principles to life in general:

“Someone might point out that these examples are mere avocations, so with them there’s not much at stake,Fine, now do the same exercise with matters we take to be more serious.The results are not all that different.

To my good fortune, I’ve never thought to ask myself whether I have the talent to do something.If the activity- academic, artistic , or physical- seemed interesting, I tried it.If I didn’t quite get it, I tried it differently.Why should I know how to do something I’ve never done before?”

Wow!Is she saying that we can stop worrying so much about how everything we do in life is evaluated and take risks to try new ways of being without worrying about whether we are judged by others to be a failure?I think that is exactly what she is saying and I also think this is one of the key lessons that can be learned from practicing meditative disciplines like Zen.I agree with Langer’s approach of starting your mindful practice in the so called “avocations” or “less serious” pursuits such as art. As we learn to become more mindful in these areas, we are “practicing” so to speak for other areas of life where the stakes seem to be or actually are higher. It is for this reason that, at The Vista Zen Center, in addition to Formal Zen Practice a more informal practice is also emphasized. This informal practice is described on The Vista Zen Center Website as follows:

The second approach, “Genjo Practice” is concerned with a student’s engagements outside the traditional Zen setting. The students everyday lives become the focus of their Zen practice.

To facilitate “Genjo Practice” Jiyu Sensei encourages students to work with him focusing on a specific aspect of their lives. Often this will be something they love to do and will probably continue to do no matter what else is going on in their lives. For some students, this might be the time spent in working in a creative domain such as painting, poetry, or music. Or it might be home-schooling one’s children, taking care of the garden, or the livelihood that puts food on the table and a roof over their heads.

Note that at The Vista Zen Center the “Genjo Practice”, which could be viewed as encouraging what Langer calls “creative mindfulness”, is practiced in conjunction with Zazen which is a more formal and specific mindfulness training.In future posts, I will look at why I think this combined training program is probably more effective, at least for most people, than Langer’s approach.

And so there, ladies and gentlemen is Art and Zen Today’s moment of ZEN.

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